Journalist Assaulted in UK for Filming Anti-Israel Event

Freelance journalist and blogger Richard Millett was assaulted and subjected to abuse at anti-Israel event at University of London.

By Rachel Hirshfeld

First Publish: 5/15/2012, 12:02 PM

Anti-Israel protest (illustrative)

Flash 90

A freelance journalist and blogger, Richard Millett, was assaulted and subjected to abuse Monday evening at an anti-Israel event at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) at the University of London.

Millett was attacked after he refused to stop filming the viciously anti-Israel meeting, which was organized by the university’s Palestine Society and the General Union of Palestine Students.

The speakers included Karma Nabulsi, a professor at Oxford and former Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) representative, and Abdel-Bari Atwan, a 'Palestinian' journalist who revealed his deep-rooted desire to see the obliteration of the Jewish state when he stated, “If the Iranian missiles strike Israel -- by Allah, I will go to Trafalgar Square, and dance with delight if the Iranian missiles strike Israel.”

Before Nabulsi and Atwan began addressing the students, who congregated at the university’s Khalili Lecture Theatre, the audience was shown a film depicting a ‘Palestinian’ state in all of Israel. In an effort to expose the organized incitement occurring on university grounds, Millet began recording the event. He managed to film a small portion of the defamatory anti-Israel propaganda before he was assaulted, prodded and ordered to stop filming.

He was then told, “You’re a typical Israeli, you know that?" -- a statement intended to be a derogatory slur.

The chairperson of the event, who was seated in front of Millett, stood up, turned around and grabbed Millett’s camera and knapsack full of belongings. His phone, glasses case, voice recorder and pens were left scattered on the floor.

The audience then commenced taunting Millett, clapping their hands while repeatedly shouting, “Leave.”

Mlllett refused to do so, asserting that he had done nothing wrong to warrant such hateful outbursts.

Millet, who seeks to expose the inherent anti-Semitism of the anti-Israel movement that has become rampant on university campuses in the UK, lives in London and received his Masters in Middle East politics from SOAS.